After the experience with the Pierce Arrow Dad and I kept looking through the Trading Post. One Saturday we saw a 1949 Packard Series 22 Limousine. The price? ‘First $100 takes it’.
We drove out to Amelia to a small garage and a fenced lot out back. The Packard had been stored in the lot about 3 years previously by a ‘former’ friend of the garage owner and he wanted it gone. This picture looks pretty close to the way we saw it, but it doesn’t give you the size of this thing. Add about 2 feet to a Chevy Suburban and that is close.
The car itself was a good buy for $100. The bottom half of the engine was in the trunk and the driver’s side floor was gone from the center of the car to the door.
But the seats- including the two fold down jump seats- were perfect. All of the glass was there and rolled up and down as smooth as silk, including the window that divided the back seat from the front. The body wasn’t beat real bad, considering it was in a small yard and surrounded by other cars.
That was the problem. The guy who owned the lot didn’t own the car. A buddy had asked to part it there for a ‘week or two’ 3 years earlier and he hadn’t heard from the guy in almost 2 years. It was being sold without a title which added another level of problems putting it back on the road.
Dad and I talked it over for a few minutes and let the guy know we would call him later that afternoon. On the 45 minute ride home we listed the good points and the bad points on the beast. One topic that came up was how many of them were there?
This is pre-(common)internet. Luckily I had purchased a book that listed the production figures on most US cars from about 1900 to about 1975. As soon as I got home I looked it up.
In 1949 Packard made 7 of these limousines.
We called the guy about an hour after we had left his shop.
He had already sold the Packard.
We had come that close to owning one of only 7. And here are pictures of two of them.
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